What don't I know that I should know?

I remember once listening to an interview on the radio with Richard Dawkins about his book The God Delusion. Afterward, the host of the show (I can't remember what show it was now) took calls from people who had questions for Dawkins. One very enthusiastic opponent of Dawkins' perspective seemed to think he had a "zinger" for Dawkins, something that would leave Dawkins speechless. The caller apparently "knew" that God existed and he said as much to Dawkins, reasoning like this: "You can't prove that God doesn't exist, ergo atheism is untenable." Dawkins, if I recall correctly, responded with the traditional "spaghetti monster defense." That is, it's equally impossible to prove or disprove the existence of a flying spaghetti monster as it is to prove or disprove the existence of a God. If we're talking about something that isn't physically observable, then whatever it is we're trying to refer to exists on the same logical plane, be it God or spaghetti monster or your grandmother's ghost.

Now, I'm not saying that I agree with everything Dawkins says, or his methods, but the audacity of the caller is what really gets to me. Had he gone through his entire life believing that, because you can't prove God's lack of existence, the position of atheism is untenable? Had it never occurred to him that the same argument can be applied to the existence of something as well as the lack of existence of it? It's basic philosophy: the fallacious argument from ignorance--because you can't prove something to be true, it must be false and vice versa. The typical line of the believer goes something like this: "You can't prove God doesn't exist, so he must exist." I mean, even people who haven't studied philosophy have to see the problem with this, right? But apparently not. I'm not saying that there isn't some argument for God out there that is convincing (and I'm not saying I'm an atheist either); I'm just saying that the caller was extremely naive philosophically.

But this leads me to a more important concern. What don't I know that I should know? Philosophers have their pet peeves about bad arguments, and it's easy for us to recognize when someone simply hasn't done his thinking-homework, as I've outlined in the case above. But what about other disciplines? What common assumptions do I make that the psychologist, sociologist, anthropologist (or whoever) might think naive? How often do I fail to recognize my own lack of insight into some situation? Have I done so in this very blog???

The American Philosopher's Dilemma

OK, so this isn't really anything new, and it certainly draws from Socrates. Still, I feel compelled to write it because, well, this is my blog and in my dealings with people recently, it's been on my mind.

The following is what I'm referring to as "The Philosopher's Dilemma" (I'll discuss why I added "American" shortly). The philosopher and the rest of the population are distinguished in this way. The rest of the population argues that they know what the hell they're talking about. The philosopher argues that the rest of the population doesn't know what the hell they're talking about. Of course, the philosopher also knows that he doesn't know what he's talking about, except for the fact that no one else knows what they're talking about.

Herein lies the philosopher's dilemma. As a philosopher, how do you convince the rest of the population that they don't know what the hell they're talking about, without sounding arrogant and while at the same time getting across the point that you don't know what the hell you're talking about either? It almost never works. The philosopher comes off as an arrogant prick, pissing off the rest of the population.

It's kind of like one member of a village trying to convince the rest of the village that everyone in the village poops, including him. No matter what he says, the rest of village will not acknowledge the fact, and they will find him arrogant for even suggesting such a thing. What is the lone villager to do?

I guess this is one of the reasons why so many thinkers throughout the philosophical tradition have recommended silence, from Lau-Tzu to Wittgenstein. But it's not always easy to be silent.

Oh yeah, the "American" thing. I guess I included that as a qualifier because so many Americans I've met are arrogant (hasty generalization be damned!), from school administrators to bartenders. So the traditional philosopher's dilemma is compounded in America by the fact that so many Americans are extra-arrogant. Hey, that should be the name of a band or something...

What's wrong with "Slow" Intelligence?

I just recently finished reading Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I know, I know. As a philosopher I should have read it many years ago. Actually, people have been telling me about it for years but it just so happens that I only recently got around to reading it. But, wow, I definitely understand the appeal.

There's a point toward the end of the book where Pirsig relates his experiences of a few philosophy graduate seminars at the University of Chicago. At one point, the professor asks him his opinion on, I believe, a Socratic dialogue. Pirsig is unable to respond, not because he's dumb, but because, after the question is asked, he begins to replay in his head possible answers and their logical consequences and contradictions--over and over, until everyone has left the classroom except Pirsig.

I had similar experiences in my education. Don't get me wrong: I don't come close to the intelligence level of Pirsig (insofar as IQ is a measure of intelligence); I'm just saying I had similar experiences, particularly in the first few upper division philosophy courses I took. I remember taking Epistemology (theory of knowledge) for the first time. The professor had just got his PhD from UC Berkeley, and had done some writing in the field. He was passionate about the material and he did a great job of relating some of the key developments of the field in the 20th century, such as the Gettier problems. I rarely said a word in class. Not because I was dumb or didn't care, but because I was assimilating the material, running it over and over in my mind.

Sometimes this hurt me on tests, be they class-specific or academia-specific like the GRE. For every problem there seemed to be more possibilities than the answers that were provided. The wording also threw me off sometimes. They could mean this or they could mean that. Too many damn possibilities.

We are told that Charles Darwin did not have a particularly sharp personality (why else did he need his own "bulldog?"). His virtue was in his ability to sit down, think, and gradually (and meticulously) work out the consequences of whatever the hell he was writing about--evolution or species of butterfly. He probably would have done miserably on the GRE or SAT.

This sort of calculating intelligence I am calling "slow" intelligence for the purposes of this blog. The ability to step back and calculate possibilities without any sort of outside constraints (like time) seems indispensable to our evolutionary history. Of course, quick intelligence (like that of Bertrand Russell or Stephen Colbert) must have been equally important, but I'm not saying it wasn't. Probably slow intelligence began to develop more and more as our cities and societies became more and more distant from bare-bones nature.

So why the emphasis on quick intelligence in the West? Our educational system generally weeds out the slow and assimilates the quick. Maybe it's just easier? Someone with slow intelligence might possibly be brilliant, but we don't want to wait around forever to see if she's going to come up with the next ingenious theory or idea. The problem is that the person of slow intelligence whose GRE scores (for example) are the only thing holding him back might never get the opportunity to shine. After he gets denied by graduate schools, he might be forced to turn away from Academia for monetary reasons--he's got no money! Then we are forever denied the brilliant ideas he had the potential to put forth. To some extent, this is what happened to Einstein. I guess we can be comforted by the fact that if someone really is a genius (a label we often attribute to Einstein) then his brilliance will shine through in some way.

Still, it would be nice if people of slow intelligence were valued more highly. The least we could do is give them a ten dollar Starbucks card.

Internet Charlatan

OK, so I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but, alas, it has. Readers will notice that in my previous blog, I had a few things to say about a fellow named Alex Kierkegaard (AK) at Insomnia. He responded, as I expected (here's his response). However, when I responded back to him on Insomnia, he (or someone else at Insomnia) deleted my post, leaving his post as the supposed "last word."

We've come this far, so I'm going to reproduce my post here as a blog. Why? Well, because AK asked for it by hypocritcally deleting my post (for the record, I've preserved every response to my blogs, including the nasty ones). And he can't delete this one. Also, I'm posting this because I've got some free time right now, and because a back-and-forth like this can be fun, despite its juvenile nature. Here's the response AK deleted:

'I appreciate that at least, within the ad hominem, there is some content to AK's words. I reduced his comments to ad hominem because I wasn't aware of the other post that the courteous anonymous poster directed me to.

I do have to point out that I never deleted the original blog, and if you go to the blog itself, you'll see that the quotes AK took are still alive and well. So please don't call me a "coward" on that account. I'm just going to ignore the phrase "at least he has the integrity to call you a retard" for obvious reasons. Although it is a bit funny.

Now, to respond to AK's actual content. First of all, would you stop with the defense mechanism bull shit? Because I tend to be careful with my writing, or because I defend myself when a tool like you attacks me my "defense mechanisms are running amok?" Jesus, just stop. Do you want me to talk about your defense mechanisms, and the fact that you have to include a "fucking rat" after everything you write? In fact, I'm beginning to think that the severity of your ad hominem attacks are directly proportional to the extent that your ego feels threatened.

So you like Schopenhauer, eh? That's the second time you've accused me of being ignorant of Schopey (yes, that's what I call him). I agree that ad hominem can be useful, but clearly that's about the only tool at your disposal. Here's a Schopey quote for you from World as Will and Idea: "What distinguishes the false philosopher from the true is this: the perplexity of the latter arises from the contemplation of the world itself, while that of the former arises from some book, some system of philosophy which is before him." Hmm... where do you fall in? Well, judging from the copious Baudrillard quotes and full essays on your site and your claims of the Tractatus as "the most important philosophical work of the 20th century" I think we know where you fall. I mean, after going through Insomnia one wonders if it should be called "Baudrillardia." Yeah, I just made that up.

Personal considerations have nothing to do with anything, huh? But haven't you just said that ad hominem is useful? Doesn't ad hominem, by it's very nature, require at least some level of personal involvement?

Please explain: "I am indeed ignoring all that chatter. And you know why? Because I am a philosopher." In what sense are you a philosopher that you can ignore what other thinkers have said? Clearly you don't ignore everything. After all, Wittgenstein's ideas themselves are just "chatter" from that perspective.

What are the grave mistakes? Poole probably didn't quote them for the same reason I didn't; they're obvious and all you have to do is read the rest of his preface to figure them out, or just read the Investigations. For one, Wittgenstein realized that he was wrong to condemn all of philosophy as meaningless. A better way of understanding the use of language is through language games, which you apparently condemn but also engage in all over Insomnia.

Yes, Wittgenstein called Russell and Moore an idiot for the most part, but Russell's introduction was written after that point, when Russell had had a chance to more deeply understand the material. (By the way, nice knowledge of the history of philosophy...)

And what you've said about the Tractatus is still debatable! Understanding why meaningless verbiage is meaningless is just as meaningless as aesthetics or morality! The issue isn't whether it's philosophy, it's whether philosophizing is meaningless. And, yes, I am challenging Wittgenstein's own claim from the end of the Tractatus that we should "discard the ladder" once we've made our way out of nonsensibility. Similarly, Ayer can try to show that the principle of verification is legitimate all he wants (as he did), but we can just point out that the formulation of the principle itself is unverifiable according to the principle.

I did not mean that we shouldn't discuss Wittgenstein. I meant that, according to your own reading of Wittgenstein, much of what you were saying was meaningless. There is a difference.

Yes, you're absolutely right. We do understand what we're saying. I know what you mean when you say "videogame" and you know what I mean when I call you a "tool." But then, stop telling people they're morons for talking about games as art! As I point out at the end of the blog, there are behaviors that people engage in that make us want to call people "artists" and things "art."

And seriously, you have to keep pointing out my degree don't you? That doesn't even matter to me, but for you and your followers it's the easiest thing to add after every sentence: "And given your philosophy degree you should have known that!"

And, btw, you almost sound like you're describing a language game there at the end when you discuss "using your brain to determine what the other wanted to communicate." I stand by my claim that you should read Philosophical Investigations. Haven't ever read it have you? Just assumed that the Tractatus was the incontrovertible work of "genius?"

No, I did not explain what a language game is because there are numerous interpretations and to some it can be a quite difficult concept. One of things Wittgenstein is saying in the Investigations is that we understand the meaning of language through its use. We play different "language games" with each other in different situations, and if all parties involved aren't privy to the rules, then it doesn't work. Thus, Baudrillard is playing a language game of sorts when he writes in near incomprehensible prose. I am playing a language game when I talk about "art." Other philosophers play language games when they discuss "truth." This is why Philosophical Investigations is more pertinent to the task at hand. You can condemn "games as art" as meaningless according to The Tractatus. But according to the Investigations a discussion of games as art is another language game which, I feel, many understand the rules to. Now do you get it?

Can you honestly accuse someone of "throwing a book in your face" when half your Insomnia posts contain quotes that aren't even explained? I recall one "essay" that simply ended with a long passage from Baudrillard.

Then you tell me that Lyotard is full of shit, without giving the least bit of evidence as to why?

Yes! Can you explain to me what postmodernist thought is? Because it really doesn't make sense to me. I assume you think that's because I'm an idiot? Well why don't you explain it to me? Bring it down to "my level?" Because no one has ever successfully been able to explain it. I tend to agree with Noam Chomsky.'

The Self, Art, and Wittgenstein

David Hume made the interesting claim that the self does not exist. Of course, Buddhist teachings also tell us that there is no self in a different way, but Hume was the first to create an argument that us Westerners could take seriously. In one of my recent Philosophy 101 classes, I introduced this idea (as I usually do) then later we discussed the ambiguous relationship between the player and her avatar in videogames. I drew heavily from Jon Cogburn's and Mark Silcox's book, Philosophy Through Video Games, where they devote the first chapter to the idea that the self might be vague in space and time. When a player says "I just beat level 4!" he seems to be extending his self in space to the avatar; obviously the player himself did not defeat a dragon or run through a dungeon. I mean, he's not really Mario or Link or a Death Knight, but his words tell a different story.

Now, I'm not going to go into detail about Personal Identity but I will say that I lean towards the idea that the self is vague in space and time (an idea discussed in a famous paper called The Extended Mind, also cited by Cogburn and Silcox). Of course, this idea has some consequences. If the self extends into space and time, then what about myspace, facebook, this blog? It's not really a false identity I'm creating; it's an extension of my identity offline. By writing what I'm writing here (and what I've written elsewhere), I am extending my self into space. The idea of an online identity isn't new, of course, but it's philosophical implications have never been fully spelled out in realtion to Personal Identity, as far as I'm aware.

A personal consequence of a spatially vague self is that I should take more pride in the ways I extend my identity, especially on the internet. Until this point, I've just sort of seen my blog as a digital personal notebook where I can write sloppily and abuse the English language (as I do in my hand-written notebooks). After all, the blog is mine and no one is telling me I have to write it in any specific way. Still, I realize now that some people actually, occasionally read it, and on those grounds I feel I have some sort of obligation to my fellow humans to make it more coherent than I ordinarily make it.

Also, the publication of the Zelda book brought more readers my way, including some game-journalists who reported on the book before it was published. Some of them went through my old blog entries only to choose a single passage for praise or condemnation. Annoying as it can be to be quoted out of context, I think it might be best if I took a little more pride in my blog to lessen the impact of the inevitable.

In my last blog, I mentioned Insomnia--a website run by someone named "Alex Kierkegaard." As it turns out, this guy went through one of my previous blogs to attempt a point by point "refutation" of what I'd written. I was initially interested in what he had to say because he was one of the few people I'd seen who'd devoted some writing to videogames and art from a philosophical perspective. Now I'm not the sort of person to be drawn into a juvenile ad hominem battle, even through my extended internet identity. Too many times have I seen such a battle on amazon (or some other site) between seemingly uneducated reviewer and educated author.

Let me explain this further. It's not as though I feel that my philosophy postgraduate degree somehow makes me too good to interact with possibly less educated people on the net. On the contrary, I will listen to what nearly anyone has to say if there's a possibility that I might learn something or grow as a philosopher. Do philosophers only learn from other philosophers? Of course not.

But there is something to be said about "stooping to another's level." And there are some people from whom I can no longer learn (although at one point in my life I could have). An ad hominem battle almost never gets people anywhere. At first I thought that Alex Kierkegaard (AK) might be able to teach me something, but after reading his article on games and art I realize that he simply didn't do his research.

It's not my intention to denigrate what others have done or written (despite the fact that AK specifically attacked what I'd written), but I'm assuming Insomnia has a decent amount of readers. And if those readers haven't studied enough philosophy to understand AK's philosophical blunders concerning games and art, then I'm here to set them straight. Here's just one example of a game journalist who fatuously praised AK. The journalist, Cole Stryker, even titled his article "People Who Get It." Now this is what scares me, and this is the main reason I'm writing this. AK's games and art article would have been ripped apart had he turned it in to any philosophy teacher, but it's apparently praiseworthy by an uninformed game journalist.

Again, I'm not attacking the journalist, I'm not attacking AK. I'm just writing this in the hopes that someone out there will be led to this blog, hopefully emerging with a deeper appreciation of the issues surrounding games and art.

AK makes heavy use of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus in AK's games and art article on Insomnia, quoting from it heavily. AK's main point seems to be that to ask whether games are art doesn't make sense. As he puts it: "The question 'Can games be art?' is nonsensical, and therefore any answer one might come up with for it will also be nonsensical. Put another way: the question is not a question and the answer is not an answer." AK goes on to discuss Wittgenstein himself:

"Now I have explained here the problem with the word 'art' in very plain and crude terms, but those of you who are still puzzled by it should realize that for many centuries it used to be a philosophical problem of the first order, until it was effectively dealt with by Ludwig Wittgenstein in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, one of the most important philosophical works of the twentieth century..."

Anyone who's studied Wittgenstein in detail, or anyone who respects the philosophical tradition, will see problems with this right away. To say that Wittgenstein "solved" the problems with the term "art" is to ignore the natural disagreements among philosophers and to ignore Wittgenstein's own thoughts on the Tractatus later on in his life. In his introduction to Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein writes "I have been forced to admit grave mistakes in what I wrote in that first book" (p. vi).

What AK doesn't appreciate about the Tractatus is that Wittgenstein was not just trying to condemn aesthetics and claims about "art" as nonsense; he was trying to condemn all of philosophy! As Bertrand Russell notes in his original introduction: "The inexpressible contains, according to Mr. Wittgenstein, the whole of logic and philosophy" (p. XXXII).

What's worse, trying to discuss Wittgenstein's theory at all is meaningless according to the theory. As Russell says: "... the things that have to be said in leading the reader to understand Mr. Wittgenstein's theory are all of them things which that theory itself condemns as meaningless" (p. XXIII).

So, this is exactly what a clever philosophy professor would have written on AK's article had he turned it in as an assignment: "99% of this paper is nonsensical." Why? Because, according to Wittgenstein's theory, writing about why nonsensical things are nonsensical is itself nonsensical! And this is just what AK has done. Furthermore, it might be worthwhile for AK to note that postmodernist writers like Jean Baudrillard take the cake for nonsensibility in a Wittgensteinian sense (I mention this because AK goes so far as to include full essays of Baudrillard's on Insomnia).

My advice for AK is to take a look at Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. In my view, it's a much more mature and practical book than the Tractatus. Moreover, one postmodernist (Lyotard) even uses Wittgenstein's idea of a "language game" (discussed in Philosophical Investigations) as a springboard for postmodernist thought.

I'm willing to have a philosophical discussion on the net with someone who knows both philosophy and games (in fact I'm now one of the writers on the blog Philosophy of Video Games), but it means we all have to be mature and be at a certain level of understanding (or at least do our homework). This will generally improve the integrity of the philosophy done on the net, I think. I would never expect first time philosophy students to have the devoted the time to philosophy that I have, but I would expect someone who claims to have a strong knowledge of philosophy to have that ability (AK). There, I lied OK, that's my subtle ad hominem.

I am grateful to AK because he caused me to go back into my collection and rehash Wittgenstein. I haven't really studied Wittgenstein since my undergrad days and delving into his ideas again makes me realize why I found him so interesting then and now. Also, despite the philosophical problems, AK has brought back to my consciousness one of my own criticisms of aesthetics when I first began to study it: what's the damn point? Why worry about whether this or that is or isn't art? What is art?

Well, the main reason why I still find it worthwhile to ask these questions is because there are things which I am strongly inclined to call "art" and there is a certain sort of behavior that I am inclined to attach to someone I call an "artist." In fact, Wittgenstein himself was known to see things in an artistic way. In another introduction to the Tractatus, Bryan Vescio writes: "... Wittgenstein approached philosophical problems as an artist, rather than as a scientist..." (XVII). Wittgenstein's own words from his preface to the Tractatus also tell us something about his artistic inclinations: "... what I have written makes no claim to novelty in points of detail; and therefore I give no sources, because it is indifferent to me whether what I have thought has already been thought before me by another" (p. 3). Or take a few words from his preface to Philosophical Investigations: "The same or almost the same points were always being approached afresh from different directions, and new sketches made. Very many of these were badly drawn or uncharacteristic, marked by all the defects of a weak draughtsman" (p. v). Are all these statements meaningless then? Or do others see something that I see there in Wittgenstein's words, that if we can call anyone an artist we can call him one?

In the Tractatus, another one of Wittgenstein's points is that the inexpressible shows itself, but we cannot speak about it. Again, as Russell puts it: "The totalities concerning which Mr. Wittgenstein holds that it is impossible to speak logically are nevertheless thought by him to exist..." (p. XXXIV). Maybe this is what is "showing" itself to me when I am inclined to call certain things art, despite the fact that I shouldn't speak about it according to the Tractatus? Or maybe aesthetics is simply a very complex language game that some of us artsy philosophers have fun playing?

Why do we call people artists? Because there are actions that people take which make us want to call them artists, and this inclination is as natural as the one that Wittgenstein mentions of our natural disposition to create self-contained systems (like logic). It is the former inclination, I think, that is the basis for all theories of art. If everything is art, then the word is meaningless (as many have claimed). But if some things are art, then we need theories of art so some other things can be excluded.

Jonah Lehrer's Book about Decision-Making

OK, so I've been thinking lately that I wanted to write a blog (I don't write them often). I've had several ideas, one of which was an entry about a guy who calls himself "Alex Kierkegaard," who writes the commentary section of a website called "Insomnia." I've always wanted to delve deeper into post-modernism, and this Kierkegaard guy seems to fancy himself a contemporary Baudrillard (based on the two or three commentaries I read at Insomnia).

But that can wait. I'd rather do a short review of one of the books I finished recently. Well, it's sort of a review/things I found interesting about the book. The book is How We Decide by a young writer named "Jonah Lehrer." According to the inside cover, Lehrer is a Rhodes Scholar and a graduate of Columbia. He also worked with a Nobel prize winning neuroscientist. So he's got the experience and the credentials. Of course, a person with impressive qualifications doesn't always produce a worthy product. But in this case, I think, he did.

The title of Lehrer's book tells us that he will be discussing the decision-making process in people. How do we think we make decisions and how does this analysis match up with new discoveries in neuroscience about the way the brain actually functions? Well, the match isn't so good according to Lehrer. Since the Greeks, we've taken a rationality-trumps-all approach to decision making; it's up to us to curb our emotions and generally control our relation to the world through reason. In the West, Plato championed this perspective and many Enlightenment thinkers followed suit.

Lehrer's thesis is, essentially, that we use both reason and emotion to make decisions, not just reason, as the Western tradition would have us believe; we just need to know when to use reason and when not to. Sometimes decision making demands careful deliberation, other times it relies on feeling. You can think too much, and you can feel too much. Now, there are self help books with this same message, but Lehrer distinguishes himself by providing numerous examples and scientific research to back up his claims.

Still, I can't help but feel that Lehrer oversimplifies the philosophical tradition beginning with Plato. Other philosophers of many different traditions have realized that reason isn't the answer to all of life's problems, including David Hume whose famous phrase "Reason is the slave of the passions" clearly makes this point. But maybe, generally, Lehrer is right (he also does quote Hume). Even if philosophers have tried to warn us about the limitations of reason, the general attitude in academia doesn't always reflect this. Us Westerners tend to elevate reason above all else.

My other problem with Lehrer is that, sometimes, he seems to draw extreme conclusions from his research that should, perhaps, await further research. In other words, he might be right about some of his claims but the research he presents is not conclusive. But overall, Lehrer's book is great and I highly recommend it. Most importantly, Lehrer is at least attempting to challenge our beliefs about ourselves. He might be wrong about some of his conclusions, but I suspect that he's right about a lot of them too.

Here are a few of the points Lehrer makes that caught my attention:

1) Emotions are like aphorisms: short sentences drawn from long experience. While our emotions only present us with a good or bad feeling (via dopamine), these feelings have been cultivated and developed over time, usually without us being aware of it.
2) Quality of practice is as important as quantity. He says that "mistakes should be carefully cultivated and carefully investigated."
3) People who have addictive personalities may suffer from literally having less brain mass (less dopamine receptors).
4) Randomly selected stocks trump high-falutin computer models in terms of market-prediction.
5) At least in one study, a random sample of people trumped members of the junior Stanford wine club in terms of the ranking of supposedly good wines.
6) It's the easy decisions that we need to think most deeply about.

I especially like it when people who think that their shit doesn't stink are shown that, in fact, they are full of shit (I'm targeting numbers four and five above)--it's like a Harvard Shakespeare scholar who is personally told by God that Hamlet is a terrible play (for the record, I don't think it is a terrible play, nor am I convinced of the existence of God, but that's not the point).

One of the implications of Lehrer's conclusions is that we aren't as great as we think we are. We often think that we're being very rational, considering all the possibilities, but often we aren't or we can't based on the capacity of our brains. There is an interesting point toward the end of the book where Lehrer talks about certainty and the way our minds search for any sign of certainty even when the situation doesn't demand it. We impose an "artificial consensus" on our neural circuitry. And we become so convinced that a conclusion we've reached is true that we neglect any evidence to the contrary, including very convincing evidence. People with PhDs as well as us mortals are guilty of this psuedo-certainty. Thus Lehrer recommends that we embrace uncertainty. Sure, sometimes we are justified in our certainty, but for the most part there are many aspects of life that are uncertain and we shouldn't pretend anything else.

The last thing I'll discuss here is number six above. While we often think that we should think as much as possible about very difficult decisions, research shows that this isn't always the best course of action. In fact, says Lehrer, we should think harder about the smaller, less complex decisions. When we consciously deliberate, we use the neo-cortex. But the cortex can only hold so much information at once. This is, evidently, why we evolved emotions: they help us make the more difficult decisions that our cortex cannot compute. It's worth noting here that there are actual cases of people without the capacity for emotion who spend hours deliberating the most insignificant decisions, like whether or not to open the window. This alone seems to show that emotions play a huge role in our decision making process. Of course, Lehrer doesn't make many all-or-nothing claims, and this is no exception. Our emotions can be wrong, and so can our rationality; the trick is to know when to use each.

Again, I highly recommend this book. Not everyone will agree with what Lehrer's saying, but he's a good writer and he makes some interesting claims. Even if we can disagree with his conclusions, at least he's basing them on contemporary research and evidence.

Infrequent Blogging

OK, so throughout the course of my rather pathetic blog, I've had a couple of readers here and there--and that's actually more than I expected. If my blog is pathetic, it's because my effort has been equally pathetic; I just don't care enough to publicize it and write new posts every day, or week, or month... or year.

I do like blogging occasionally, but just as a fun activity (like freewriting) or to get out a simple line of thought.

Let me try an analogy. When I first started playing the guitar, I felt the need to impress people for some reason. When I (and those I was playing with) came up with what I thought were interesting lyrics and instrumentals, I wanted others to hear. Even when I learned an existing song, I wanted others to hear.

But now I could care less. I play the guitar for me. The process of learning a new song to full mastery is so enjoyable--and it's enjoyable every time I play the song again after mastering it. Right now I'm about a quarter way through the acoustic version of "Asturias" and I love it. Each time I pick up the guitar I learn a bit more. And the process goes on.

Now where was I? Oh yeah, this is like blogging because when I blog now I don't need an audience. I just blog to blog. But then, the analogy breaks down, because I was never trying to impress anyone with my blogging in the first place--and learning a song on the guitar is a hell of a lot more enjoyable.